liam payne in pink!

Can’t believe it’s been 9 years since Strip That Down was released

i've mentioned this one a few times in the last months but i loved his childlike wonder. simple things excited him so much and it was adorable. space, dinosaurs, people comparing him to tea cups. how could you not love him.

he was a jack of all trades (or almost all trades). singing, songwriting, producing, painting, modelling,... there was hardly anything he wasn't at least good at

his desire to help/support people. charity work, offering advice to newcomers in the business, promoting lesser known artists he believed in, checking in on people, all of that

in addition to that: being humble. he could've tooted his own horn constantly (rightfully so), but he didn't. he often chose to stay silent and help where he could without making a big deal out of it. this is something i've always admired about people. helping for the sake of helping, not just to make yourself look better

he was never jealous of anyone. like posting about harry winning his first grammy or showing up to louis' movie premiere. a lot of people (myself included if i'm honest) wouldn't have done that. but liam did.

going off of that: he loved loudly and unapologetically. he cared about his loved ones and wanted the world to know

he was ambitious. he had goals he wanted to reach and kept trying over and over again until he got what he wanted.

Ruth (Liam's sister) share this on her instagram story [16.04.26].

Transcript is below:

https://x.com/ltrsiee/status/2045474365605564568

https://x.com/PopBase/status/2045477935256080703

x x

plus they don‘t need ridiculous pr like this cause there‘s more than enough people who would‘ve watched the docuseries anyway.

Even now with their families, Liam's family still out there being supportive, yet where's the energy in return?

It's so frustrating how many people are trying to rewrite history now and get away with it. Hard to forgive and forget. It's like they can't even allow him to rest in peace. Wretched. One day I won't rant anymore, but it is not this day. A day may come...

https://x.com/moonshinelt/status/2036214929691136004

Oh, my heart.

But this is also why them being performative about their grief now feels really insincere. Because they blatantly didn't care about Liam when he was going through one of the worst moments of his life. Now they are trying to rewrite history. Unfortunately, it works for their fans and the media/public at large, but us Liam fans know better. They weren't there for Liam and this is bullshit.

I wish they would stop talking about him. None of it rings true. Liam and his family don't deserve pretense. I hate performative grief. I'd rather they just don't mention it at all. Grief is already awful without people pretending to care.

the thing is: of course it makes sense from a professional perspective. nobody wants to be publicly associated with someone who's struggling in multiple ways. but if your reputation as a celebrity and the number of your sales matter more to you than the wellbeing of your so called friend, you're not a good person in my opinion. like the other anon before you said, i would hope that my friends were there for me if i was at my lowest. especially when kindness is your brand or your fandom is called lovers.

this is why i will always respect louis. he's always been vocal about his support and love for liam and i will not tolerate liam stans who shit on him cause why are you attacking the only one of liam's former bandmates who was actually there?

Niall this year has liked one post from Harry and one from Louis. Harry and Louis haven't liked each other's posts, or Niall's posts, or Zayn's posts. Zayn hasn't liked anyone's posts. Very strange behaviour as all four are releasing albums and singles.

from 2016 on it became obvious to me pretty quickly that this band and their brotherhood talk were full of shit. some of them did believe they had a good friendship that would survive a band breakup or an indefinite hiatus (example: lads holiday) but as soon as liam went solo every single person in the fandom should've realized what was going on. i still get mad when i think about the radio silence from the others when strip that down was released and it's been almost 9 years now.

they're not coworkers anymore. they're opponents. the music industry is a competition after all and they all wanna come out at the top. praising your ex-bandmate(s) could potentially help boost their sales and streams, so why would you do that? why would you willingly associate yourself with your embarassing teenage boyband past when you're a grown man in his 30s that wants to be taken seriously now?

Me asking the boys a question during soundcheck

“Which Harry Potter house would you be sorted in to?”

Niall: Hufflepuff

Liam: Gryffindor

Harry: Ravenclaw

Louis and Zayn: Slytherin